REVIEW: Grimm Fairy Tales: Myths & Legends #4

With a storm raging outside and the bodies dropping on the inside, Annie and the rest of the survivors must prevent themselves from becoming the monsters next meal. Can they succeed? Or will their abrasive personalities be their downfall?

Previously, in Grimm Fairy Tales: Myths & Legends: Annie has been committed to an institution, and on a stormy night “something” begins attacking the staff and patients.

ONE FLEW OVER THE WOLF’S DEN

Annie holds a secret that she has suppressed for years, and as result of that she looks to be responsible for the horror they are facing. As hearts begin to disappear from peoples’ chests, a storm rages outside, all the survivors must band together, or risk perishing at the hands of this unseen force that is killing them one at a time. Does Annie’s past hold the key to their survival? Or is she just a deranged young woman?

This comic reads like of the many rehashed slasher flicks that were spawned in the wake of the success of the “Friday the 13th” franchise, and I frankly didn’t like that. The comics multiple covers(a total of 5) spoil the last page reveal, but you can clearly see the story is a take off Red Riding Hood, and really that’s about it.

The setting is a stormy night, at a institution, and those that are trapped there are being picked off one by one by a unseen force. That is cliché, and as I read this issue I was able to see what was coming around every corner. There were no surprises in store here, and that was just a damn shame.

The characters fit so well in the cliché horror movie mold, you don’t even need to know their names. You have a skank, the fat kid, the caring doctor, the tough token minority, the nice girl you don’t want anything bad to happen to (but you know it will), and of course the lead character (which will come out relatively unscathed). Stock characters that weren’t fun, or engaging on any level throughout the entire issue.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM?

The artwork for this issue is all over the place, with strange shadows that are inconsistent, to characters that have facial expressions only possible after snorting a veritable mountain of cocaine. Also proportions for these characters are out of whack. There is a scene starring the main character Annie, where her hands are the size of a babies, and if you did “visual math” to add up how tall she would be, it’d be over 10 heads tall. That’d be okay, if she was from a low gravity planet, but she’s supposed to be from Earth.

The anatomy for both the human characters, and the wolf are flawed. They have a stiff appearance, like posed action figures, and not in the cool way that Ed McGuiness is able to pull off. Their limbs are placed in awkward poses in what looks like an attempt to make them look like they are really alive and interacting. But in doing so it highlights how little the artist is able to convey visually, and makes the awkwardness of the characters linger longer.

The character design looks like the artist raided the late Michael Turner’s sketch book for stuff that didn’t quite make the cut. The characters have that Turner-look to them which is something I did like back in the day, but I out grew very quickly. Here, it looks as out of date, and creatively stagnant as a mosquito breeding puddle from 1999.

This comic’s FIVE covers are just a little too much. Two are just headshots of Red and the Wolf (both by Al Rio); two are limited covers, a print looking one(by Nei Ruffino), and a alternate coloring variation to the main cover by Angel Medina that highlights the red in the cover, while desaturating all the other colors to gray. None really are that appealing to me, and I wish they’d have another cover choice, but I feel that they have already had four too many so far.

THE VERDICT: HOWLING MAD AT THE MOON

This was a disappointment. The execution of both the story and the art are flawed, and should have been handled much better. The excessive use of splash pages throughout the comic, of which I counted four, and only the last page was justified in the use of the format.

If you have been under a rock when it comes to the formula that makes up a baseline horror movie, then you will probably like this comic. But if you have seen any number of horror movies, and I am not talking in the dozens but maybe like six or seven, then you will find this comic predictable and flat.

The Author

Larry King

It is hard being a King, especially when your first name is Larry. Well, not really. In Larry’s Kingdom the re-imagining “Battlestar Galactica” is superior, “The Wire” is the greatest crime show ever, and “ROM, Spaceknight” is the hero of the realm.